Fireworks and almost fights
In the past 12 hours I've experience the best of bus times and the worst of bus times. Let's start with the worst, cause its always more fun describing humanity's stupidity.
Last night was the annual Celebration of Light in Vancouver. For those of you not from Vancouver or who've never ventured to Kits/the West End late July here's the scoop. Basically the celebration is a bunch of fireworks. Big ass fireworks. Hundreds of thousands (I'm not kidding here) people flock to the shores of English Bay to watch 4 different countries compete in a show of choreographed fireworks and music (symphony orchestra stuff) on four different nights. For the city of Vancouver its a total logistical headache. For those aged 15-30 its a trip to Vegas - brown baggin booze an'all. For those of us working in the West End its a nightmare trying to get home any time after the fireworks. Trying to get from point A to point P is worthless until well after mid-night or two hours after 400, 000 Surrey, Coquitlam and Burnaby residents make their tracks home. Cabs dissappear in the madness and guess what the main mode of transport is? The bus. Our first bus wasn't so bad. The ride entailed the usual standing-room-only-squishyness. I was sandwiched between two large hairy dudes and my travelling companion. Things didn't get fun unti l we hopped on the connector bus to Kitsilano. That was a doozey.
You know its going to be a good bus ride when you get on board and the smells of liquor, cologne and sand are all having a good dry hump in the back of the bus. The culprits were a loud group of middle-class, university types in the back. The antagonist was a portly guy with a shirt like this drawing attention to his, I'm assuming, smaller than usual penis. Then there was ruffle skirt girl next to him doning a tight little tee "Buy me something". But the kicker was young petal of a boy in a black t-shirt with "Vagitarian" embossed across his pecks. Just like school on Sunday, no class. The Legend proceeded to yell, brag about how pissed he was, ask me if I was Austrailian, "Because, like if you were that would kick ass." Whatever that means. The Legend ended up pissing off a drunken Brit/Scott sitting a few seats up who kept on yelling, "Shut up!". The Legend took this cue to power up his not-so-flexed muscles and yip back. Along came the camo-Scott. The Vagitarian jumped in to save the legend and Buy Me Something lost her seat off the Vagitarian's lap. Shame. We scooted off the bus at the next stop, narrowly avoiding drunken brawl debris that was sure to start flying round the back of the bus. How unAustrailian of me.
The ride to work today was dull. It was all Starbucks and Fendi bags. Beige dockers and uassuming ties. West-side Vancouver middle-class. I wondered if there were any Vagitarians or Legends in the crowd. Judging by the slightly haggard looks on everyone's faces I bet there was.
****
So someone asked me about the significance of the 'indabusblog' URL name. She guessed it was my African obsession shining through and I was adopting the Ndbele pronunciation of some words. Ahhh. I wish I was that cool and creative. Bus Blog was taken. So was In Transit. Indabus is sort of homage to being in grade 9 and the Quebecois exchange student I was friends with who used to always sing, "I missed da bus" by Kriss Kross.
posted by Miranda @ Thursday, July 28, 2005
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